The invention relates generally to test apparatus and systems, and particularly to systems and methods for tracing conductors through multi-conductor cables, by which term it is intended to include harnessed conductors.
While the conductors of a cable are generally color coded, it frequently happens that conductors or wires are made into a cable in which the wires are not color coded. In the absence of such coding, it is difficult to trace or identify at a second end of the cable a particular wire selected at a first end thereof. One method of doing this is to use an ohmmeter having one lead thereof connected at one end of the cable to the wire to be traced and using the other lead of the ohmmeter to probe or test the wires at the other end of the cable. Each of the wires at the other end of the cable must be checked one at a time, until a low resistance path is detected. The ends of this selected wire are then labeled to indicate opposite ends thereof. This process may then be repeated for each wire. This procedure is tedious and time consuming because, as the wires are probed, each wire must be contacted metal to metal with the probe, which often involves piercing the insulation of each conductor.